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Longhorn Skinning A Reality
AlphaAlien writes "AlphaAlien of HardwareGeeks.com has figured out how to skin all of Microsoft's upcoming Windows release codenamed Longhorn. We can now skin Longhorn in the same manner we can skin Windows XP. Here's a picture of a very early copy of the first ever non-Microsoft skin for Longhorn. The only possible issue at this point is that Microsoft appears to be planning to move away from BMP based skinning altogethor and move to PNG based skins in which case any skins made for Longhorn at this point in time will not work far into the future. Also the patch to allow the skins to be loaded may not work many builds from the present as well. But for now we'll be able to hack away at the skinning engine at our leisure. in co-operation with BetasIRC.net we will be releasing the first few longhorn skins and a guide on how to get started on creating your own Longhorn skins."
That, more than anything, tells me a lot about how people feel about Microsoft's operating systems. Past, present, and future.
To paraphrase Douglas Adams: "It is no accident that there is no single word in any language that means, 'As pretty as the Longhorn OS.'"
It's good to see Microsoft supporting free file formats! Along with using PNG, I predict that future versions of Microsoft Windows will use OGG .
- Jax
looks just like XP. I was hoping for something better - I thought there'd be hardware-accelerated coolness all over the place.
so why the fuck is it taking them another 2 years to get this on the shelves?
Skinned Longhorn = Circumsized OS?
-el
Perhaps PNG support in IE will have been improved then; this is good news for web designers.
( http://entropymine.com/jason/testbed/pngtrans/ )
I want to skin my windows crash screens, can I do that too? It'd be great to skin the crash screen to look just like the regular o/s, so I get the impression that everything is fine.
stuff |
I hope this means they will support full PNG transparancy in new versions of IE in preparation for this new feature - that would make it worthwhile for other purposes too.
...for me isn't how pretty I can get an OS to look, but how well it works. If I can put all kinds of skins on Longhorn, but it runs as slow as molasses and crashes at the drop of a hat, then MS will have wasted their time developing this thing. On the other hand if Longhorn turns out to be a nice, stable, functional OS that happens to be skinnable then Linux will have some real competition (which is good for both OS's).
get started on creating your own Longhorn skins.
How about I get the OS first?
..why are we so interested in "skinning" LongHorn prior to its release? Are we all already tired of just slagging it? :
http://efil.blogspot.com/
What about fixing png transparency for Internet Explorer first. I can't count alle the headaches i've got because of IE's lack of standards.
"Nobody really checks their email any more. They just delete their spam"
I don't get it. This is news about a feature in an OS that's not available yet, and when it's available, that feature will have changed? Excuse me, but what the heck is this about? (I'm not trying to sound like a troll - I'm really confused)
Underholdning.info
1. Buy Sun, use as tool to claim *nix compatability
2. Release some unimportant software under open/shared source license
3. Allow skinning of crappy m$ OS windowing environment
4. Spread more patently false FUD about how Linux suX0rs, make outrageous claims saying m$ is better
5. Have m$ OS be able to look like Linux
6. $$$!
Is this feature really going to be popular? Honestly, I'd love to hear what makes customizable skins so desirable.
>> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"
He!!
Finnally LongHorn will come with 1 new real feature!
Will be cool If Microsoft finnally implement full PNG support, with all the alfa thing. Its a nice format.
Also is a open-source friendly format, so a png based skinning will be good for OSS.
-Woof woof woof!
PNG skins? Eh? Wasn't Longhorn's GUI supposed to be vector? XAML (Microsoft's SVG "clone") and all that, remember?
it still ain't pancakes.
Okay, I didn't RTFA.
But, with monster monitors coming out and some people already squinting, aren't they planning to move to scalable icons?
I recall hearing of SVG icons for Gnome and KDE and of some, uh, SVG-like XML language that MS was developing...
"Provided by the management for your protection."
How is this news? It's almost made to look like Longhorn has this great new feature! But it's just able to have a different look for the controls/windows. Wow. that's pretty innovative!
I mean, that's cool, Longhorn will be able to do this, but I still fail to see why this is a news story on Slashdot.
What's next? "New DVD player from Sony will play music CD's also!!!!"
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
I don't know... maybe it's just me but... that looks like Windows XP with a different layout. It's not remarkably different. It doesn't even begin to approach true flexibility in UI layout and functionality. When you can theme AND chrome Windows, call me.
Un-news
While this is all very nice and pretty, if this is based on the PDC build of Longhorn (which is painfully slow on any of my systems, but that's besides the point...) then it doesn't have the new fangled hardware accelerated bits that are going to be part of Longhorn (Indigo? or is that something else). The GUI that comes with the Longhorn betas is just a testing one that won't be useful in the final release, so I can't really see what use skinning the gui in the beta that'll never actually be used is....
well... maybe... juuuuuust maybe. Those new resource files will replace the standard ones, having them cached, and all will be well. If you think the default XP themes are hard-coded into the source... I have a bridge I'd like to sell you...
Viva La Revolucion! Buy a Mac!
They probably use it themself though :P
You're old school? I beta tested the motherf***ing abacus!
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Microsoft finally adopts PNG? Microsoft becomes friendly with Sun? Microsoft releases WiX as open source...on SourceForge, no less? What the hell kind of bizzaro world did I wake up in today???
Quick, someone check Bill Gates for a stylish alternate-universe goatee!
I like the fact that the skinner's got a "backup" of Vice City in the F: drive... :-)
Slashdot posting a positive article about a Windows OS? [regardless of the fact its years away from release, and still in extremely early alpha stages]. Slashdot, this is so unlike you. Where are the backhand comments against M$? Where are the links with Better Operating systems? I'm ashamed of you. Where's your prejudice? Where's your bias?
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
that's what i thought. either putting one on, or taking one off.
My droning, long hours in highschool agriculture class covered the Longhorn cattle. Transporting anything with horns that big was dangerous and cumbersome. "Polled" or hornless cattle came into fashion in the cattle industry in short order.
Why has Microsoft's marketing team picked the name of an animal that was proven in the marketplace to be 1. difficult to transport (picture horns sticking out of cattle cars or OS boxes sticking out of Fed Ex trucks) 2. difficult to maneuver without being gored?
I guess Longhorn isn't as new of an OS as we might have been led to think This is all beginning to sound rather familiar if you get my "point" :P
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
Does that mean there is a chance there will be proper support for PNG in the IE version that will be shipped with Longhorn ?
No GNU has been Hurd during the making of this comment.
Yea, I know This will send my cool-karma to the pits but at least I can say I focus on getting the job done...
<obvious>
Well, this might come as a shock to you, but I'll cite some examples:
Simply because you like your speakers in black, doesn't mean everyone does. I, for once, prefer mahogny.
And as computers become a common thing, you might expect people to want to alter their looks and maybe even behaviour to suit whatever needs they may have.
</obvious>
If you really needed this answer, I think you spend way too much time alone in your room, boy. (Perhaps <obvious> as well...)
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
No, this is your basic 'look at me, look how cool I am and you're not' type BS. Much in the same way a dog wants to impress its owner.
Afterall, if this person were truly part of the Longhorn beta, they would be bound be a NDA and not able to speak of it.
See. Was it the marketing department that picked this name out? Do you think that it will be called Longhorn when it's sitting on the shelf at the brick 'n' mortar down the road?
Or was it the development team working on the project?
Why are you guessing that Longhorn isn't as new of an OS as you've been led to think? Because of the 3rd party WinXP looking skin that appears on a beta (or alpha) test version a full two years before the real product hits? Or because cows are difficult to transport?
Bitch about security, bitch about stability, but don't bitch about a codename or what it was or was not based on. that doesn't even make sense.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I couldn't care less about skinning an OS that isn't even released yet. This is not the kind of information I read /. for. What's next, posts on new skins for the beta of MS Media Player?
You don't skin a Leghorn, so much as pluck it.
Stick Men
Pull the wedgie out of your bottom and enjoy the humor.
Um, I thought it was an, um, phallic allusion...
Which probably tells you what MS's marketing drones hope "Longhorn" will do to Tux...
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
It's been established previously in this thread: the supposed Longhorn skinning is ugly. Artistically speaking, it has some commendable points. That said, we who use and understand computers are generally rooted in logic and efficiency, and this set of schemes disregards that.
I'm a firm believer in F/OSS and use Linux always. I still maintain a Windows partiton on the lappy for Uni-related projects &c. I'm very much partial to the Windows 2000 desktop. It's barren enough to be effecient, and complex enough to be useful.
All stability issues aside, Microsoft has a strong advantage against Linux DE's largely because they implement functionality with the 'newly acquired user' in mind. KDE is a magnificent testiment to modern programming, and that team has accomplished UI capabilities I never thought I'd see in a UNIX environment. IT IS STILL MISSING that edge, that edge that beginners can grab a-hold of and incorporate into their daily lives.
I'm off on a tangent, which is inherent when a textbox maintains only some ~24 lines of previous text. Many appologies. Long and the short: if you are a power user, fuck the themes. Gnome and KDE have truly done programming wonders. But, like the currently efficient battery-gas driven cars, I'd rather move quickly, than be hampered by an ugly designed monstrosity (EV1?).
A forward thanks to you who have the forsight to buy an environmentally efficient car.
-pararox-
Anyone else remeber what Microsoft tried to do with Java, by "adapting" it.
Perhaps there is a new "better" way to get transparency in the microsoft implementation?
See I totally thought this article would be about cattle mutilation, I hear it's up this year.
Never confuse volume with power.
By default maybe. KDE (don't know much about Gnome: yeah, I always got the impression everything (buttons) was clunky too, but that was ~3.5 years ago when I used it) window themes can be super thin and minimalistic. It's easy and very versatile to customise how you want literally every aspect of your desktop to look with the Kcontrol centre.
I don't know why they make default setups look so ugly either. Perhaps it's to prompt the user to change it to suit them.
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
You do know that green isn't a primary color, right?
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
5. Have m$ OS be able to look like Linux
In fact, there's so many window managers trying to look like Windows UI!
"...a generation of kids has grown up thinking Trance is the shittiest music since country and western." - Paul van Dyk
Why has Microsoft's marketing team picked the name of an animal that was proven in the marketplace to be 1. difficult to transport (picture horns sticking out of cattle cars or OS boxes sticking out of Fed Ex trucks) 2. difficult to maneuver without being gored?
While I know your post is meant to be funny, I thought I'd point out that MS's recent projects have been named after skiing destinations: Blackcomb, Longhorn, Yukon, Whidbey(not sure about that one), etc... Though it's definitely not as funny as the image of somebody getting run down and gored by a software box, I just thought I'd point that out as an FYI.
Good, PNG has always been a better choice for any picture.
I've been using it myself for ages now, it's small and keeps its original colors (although can be a tiny bit darkened, hardly noticable).
I always wondered if Windows would ever switch to PNG, or, anything better than BMP.
- Agilo
Wait, wait... they're moving towards using PNG images in their skins? Does this mean Microsoft is FINALLY recognizing the PNG image format? Does this mean that maybe, just maybe, we'll finally see proper PNG support (i.e. alpha layers) in their web browser and website designers won't have to cripple their websites to support the lowest common denominator? (ignoring for a second other things IE doesn't support right now)
I'm just saying, is all. That possibility intrigues me. Not that my web design skills are hot enough to really employ it, but...
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
Why is PNG a good format to use? This has already been discussed on slashdot but for those of you that are new to: PNGs
First PNG is an open standard that doesn't rely on proprietary formats like LZW for compression like in Gif that is owned by Unisys. PNG has a better compresses algorithm than GIF anyway.
PNG is a loss-less compression method meaning that you open and save and get back to original data. Think of it like a ZIP file, you can always get the data back from a ZIP files as you stored it in.
PNG supports three main image types: true color, grayscale and palette-based. Good for Normal Pictures, Documents and Web Based Images.
Viva La Revolucion! Buy a Mac!
HA! HA! yes, a revolution in consumerist loyality! HORRAY for BRAND MARKETING! YEAH! My brand is more revolutionary than yours!
Oh the irony!
Windowblinds is the most popular Windows skinning app, and Stardock has created a pretty strong skinning/customization community for Windows users.
I think they'll be ready for Longhorn.
what does it all mean basil?
Try this fix. It uses a CSS and some javascript to fix IE's handling of PNG images.
It sucks that one has to play these shennanigans to fix such basic functionality. It also begs the question if javascript can fix IE's mishandling... what's the hold up from Microsoft themselves?
I thought it said
Longhorn Skins Reality
Which in my opinion, is much more useful...
-Patrick
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
I was under the impression that Longhorn would be using vector graphical extensively in its UI. Mind you, I don't follow Microsoft hype very closely so I may well be totally wrong.
AFAIK, Gnome and KDE are both going toward SVG vector graphic for icons/UI elements (correct me if I am wrong). Building a UI on bitmap graphic in 2004 seem quite retarded to me.
:wq
Skins are to user interfaces what Type-R and VTEC stickers are to Honda Civics.
Isn't that a DMCA violation?
But my cow-orkers thought it was kewl!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
MS has to do something to keep people from moving to linux in the two years its going to release longhorn. Expect a few vaporous, "longhorn will get a job and help you pay the bills" kinds of articles in the next couple of years.
Actually, it has had a lot of delays already. The Millennium project was going on at Microsoft Research back in the late 1990's. Judging from technologies like Yukon, "Longhorn" is the marketing code name for Millennium. It has hit a lot of roadblocks since then:
It doesn't matter how you skin it, or how many obstacles Microsoft has to overcome, Millennium is coming. Will Millennium be the key to Microsoft's thousand year reign over the computing world? Or will Microsoft die the day its reign begins? Hm, sounds like the plot for a great monster movie...
"New machines, network links, and resources should be automatically assimilated." Microsoft
Shinoda: "The age of Millennium."
Io: "What does that mean?"
Shinoda: "A thousand year kingdom. It wants to create a home for itself. There is one flaw in its plan: Godzilla."
Godzilla 2000 (vs) Millennium (Japanese version, US version cut most of the Microsoft and Millennium references)
(Note: Palladium is a soft, shiny white metal. The Millennium alien in Godzilla 2000 (vs) Millennium in its original form appears to have a skin of palladium.)
Yes.. We pwn'd the skins website as well as took down the betairc.net website.. I wanted to see the darn skin! Grr.. anyone have another link to it?
Just me
Longhorn Killing, Gutting, and Dressing Still a Dream.
How is it that a group who never RTFA, can slashdot anything?
The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. - O'Toole's Corollary
There's MUCH more (including adding and removing RAM without rebooting--currently, Windows Server 2003 only lets you add RAM)...but you've read up on Longhorn before bashing it, right?
Note before I get called a Microsoftie--yes, I appreciate their technology. They have some of the smartest developers in the world working there. Yes, I also run Linux--Gentoo, to be exact.
You made a pointless BSOD joke.
I haven't seen a BSOD in five years.
You won't need it, because Longhorn will support several tiers of visual display, going all the way back to a "Windows Classic" display requiring no hardware acceleration.
It will take advantage of what you have if you have it. Of course...Slashdotters already knew all this, since they've actually read what's known about Longhorn, right?
What's wrong with learning to skin a Longhorn beta? Seriously. It's just some people having fun with their betas. I don't see what's insightful in bashing that.
The same people who whine that Windows XP "confused" people with its visual change will cite endless reasons why, say, their XMMS app should be skinnable.
Not referring to you specifically--just find it amusing that popular opinion seems to always contradict itself around here when it comes to Microsoft. If you're one of the minority that doesn't apply, never mind.
Hence, it being called a beta. :)
Why is microsoft against the idea of the user customizing the look of his/her desktop?
This just doesnt seem like a big deal to me. Every other gui in the world allows the user to change the look. Why is microsoft afraid of letting the user do this?
I was under the impression that Longhorn would be using vector graphical extensively in its UI. Mind you, I don't follow Microsoft hype very closely so I may well be totally wrong.
:P
It will. This is one of the beta builds. I've seen at least three MSDN videos showcasing the technology...clearly, people on this site haven't been paying attention.
All the questions and comments similar to this one in this discussion really reveal how absolutely uninformed about Longhorn Slashdotters are as they meanwhile bash it. Common knowledge about Longhorn seems to have not yet reached Slashdot--no doubt because Slashdot would rather post silly anti-"M$" article when meanwhile, great strides are taking place in their technology. Someone here actually implied you'd need a DirectX9 level card just to run the thing--obviously he didn't know Longhorn supports several tiers of operation, going all the way down to standard 2D like Windows 2000. You can choose a tier manually or let Longhorn decide for you according to system specs. This is just one example of bizarre posts that completely reveal how ignorant people are of this OS--they call it "vaporware" as though there is no information released about it. People, there is tons of info already known that Microsoft has given away freely in the past year.
For crying out loud, visit WinSuperSite and read up a little bit!
If we get to skin the Longhorn, do we get prime rib?
Sounds like you have a bad laptop. The "Designed for Microsoft Windows XP" sticker doesn't really mean much. It basically means that it has XP drivers, and comes with XP installed. My Inspiron has one too, and I ran both 2k and XP on it before I switched to Linux. I didn't notice any difference in uptimes. In both cases, they basically ran until I had to restart to install something. Over a year, each locked up maybe twice, always caused by shitty Dell video drivers.
Karma: Contrapositive
That image doesn't look very skinned to me. It appears the colors have changed, and perhaps some minor UI elements have changed, but I can't really tell. It really just looks like Longhorn with different colors to me. Perhaps the skin is just very similar and I'd have to compare side by side. I couldn't find any details on how and what they did in the article.
No popular web browsers support the animated variant of PNG. How would one create the equivalent of a GIF animation with the PNG image format other than by using some nasty JavaScript hack?
that the default release of it being circulated internally at microsoft has a user defined skin based gui...
So essentially the people who "hacked" this skin merely got a hold of a release of longhorn...
MS is going to use PNG for something?
Does this mean they are finally taking PNG seriously? Will this mean We'll finally see an MS browser that fully supports PNG? (with alpha channels and all that jazz?)
YAY!
Refer to an MS product 2 years from release as "revolutionary". Is that the "Gates Vision(tm)"?
Recount the wonders of product demos that have been shown at recent MS developer conferences.
Regularly visit MSDN _for fun_.
Refer to a GUI as "photorealistic".
Look at how many market-speak words you use. If you are not astroturfing, then at least you have bought into the PR buzz that MS creates through MSDN - yes, MSDN is a marketing outlet. It is not the unmediated look at "technology", "for hardcore developers" that some seem to think it is.
I'm just saying, beware. Do you remember Win95? Everything that they promised was doable - it wasn't fantastic. They just failed to implement it. They failed to turn it into a product. And so far as I am concerned, MS may very will fail again this time. It is too far off.
And you haven't even seen this product, supposedly. The longhorn release is up to 2 years away still, and many of these technologies are still in development. Certainly they do not exist in a coherent whole, at least visible to anyone outside of Microsoft.
Did anyone else notice that in that screenshot, the window title reads simply "Computer"? Whatever happened to "My Computer"? Trusted Computing's first semantic manifestation, perhaps? I think I'm scared now.
Hey Linux crowd...
You can use Windows XP skins unmodified on Windows 2003, so this is no new development really...
Wonderful. Sure, you're not a MS apologist you just:
.NET are coming. Feel free to ignore it all you want, but when it is released, and KDE/GNOME decide to start playing another five years of catchup, we'll see who's been paying attention. At least we have Mono.
No, I'm not.
# Refer to an MS product 2 years from release as "revolutionary". Is that the "Gates Vision(tm)"?
Guess you haven't taken any time to see what is actually running Longhorn and will be upon release. Yes, revolutionary in the Windows product line, just like Windows 3.1->95 was.
# Recount the wonders of product demos that have been shown at recent MS developer conferences.
Longhorn beta builds are freely available.
# Regularly visit MSDN _for fun_.
Not for fun, for work.
# Refer to a GUI as "photorealistic".
This is the term being used for Aero. It wasn't from me.
Look at how many market-speak words you use.
None.
If you are not astroturfing, then at least you have bought into the PR buzz that MS creates through MSDN - yes, MSDN is a marketing outlet. It is not the unmediated look at "technology", "for hardcore developers" that some seem to think it is.
I haven't bought into PR buzz. I have run Longhorn betas and used the technology. You can code 10-15 line XAML apps that will update your website. I like the tech.
I'm just saying, beware. Do you remember Win95? Everything that they promised was doable - it wasn't fantastic. They just failed to implement it. They failed to turn it into a product. And so far as I am concerned, MS may very will fail again this time. It is too far off.
Feel free to assume absolutely whatever you want. The technologies I spoke of, excluding Aero, already exist in current Longhorn betas.
And you haven't even seen this product, supposedly.
Public betas.
The longhorn release is up to 2 years away still, and many of these technologies are still in development.
No, they're not. Most are already implemented in the betas.
Longhorn and
Microsoft appears to be planning to move away from BMP based skinning altogethor and move to PNG based skins
Let's see: NeXT went with EPS in the mid to late 80s; now at Apple they use PDF. Microsoft will still be using a pixel-based system.
So much for all the claims Longwait would be a graphical breakthrough. They'll still be 20 years behind the times.
I hope somebody flays it.
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
Kinda funny... in French, "avalons" means "let's swallow"... sure Bill wants people to swallow anything he says...
oh wait... doesn't Bill speak French ?
Music is the language of the heart, the sound of the soul. -Joe Satriani
...now that I know Longhorn will be skinnable!!! ...but will they have the security level of previous versions ?
oh my, what progress!!!
Looks just like RedHat
What I love is seeing the "Designed for Windows XP" and it's got 128 MB of RAM.
It takes more that transparent windows and pretty pictures to impress me. Make it smaller, simpler, faster and more efficient and I might taking a liking to it. Revert back to the classic Windows 95 interface and I might like it even more. Remove the web integration and give me the option to uninstall things I don't want, including Internet Explorer and I might just buy it.
This article is Score:3, Flamebait.
Are the LZW and GIF aspects just a touchy subject and you don't want this to get out of hand or did you think that this is an article to cause uproar that didn't need further discussion?
If it's the latter than I don't see how this was Flamebate. If it's the prior than I'll take note and adjust the wording for the immature folks that cant have civil discussion. But as you can see from the replies there was an enlightening discussion about PNGs that I didn't think about.
you make fun of my sig because you have nothing else to lash at me for. nice. And in regards to my sig... it's this thing called "tongue in cheek humor." I'm sure you're more familiar with "tongue between cheeks" what with your insatiable boyfriend.
Viva La Revolucion! Buy a Mac!